SearchingForMyStar

Sunday, November 3, 2013

Beware of What You Share Online

Jobs are hard to come by, but they can easily disappear in the blink of an eye.

So hide your drivers license. Don't put a photo of your car online. Tweet using a fake name. Use your stripper name on Facebook. If you party make sure to keep the pictures private. Spread the word to everyone to not pass your photos around. Someone might get their hands on one of them, hate something about them, and use it against you. Don't post song lyrics either. They can easily be taken out of context.

Word in the internet universe use to be that job employers were watching. If you applied to a job they'd research your online activity to see if you were worthy of their company. I once heard that a girl with a very high GPA was rejected from a job because of something someone else posted to her Facebook wall. However, no one I know personally has spoken of this so it's still technically a myth. They probably really do though. It's evident that through the government all information from the day were were born can be seen through a simple request.

The government keeps track of anything that can go on our records. That includes birth certificates, finger prints, schooling, family profiles, jobs we've worked, arrest records, etc. This is all basic information. If you've been on the news and your real name was used, the government knows about it. Whether you were fired or quit a job is government information. How long you've been unemployed or if you own your own business can be found. None of this is hidden.

However, there are some parts of our lives that are meant for ourselves, friends, and whatever strangers we let in. This is where the internet platform gets a voice. Often times the internet holds our deepest secrets because we are quick to reveal them on social networks. The internet also holds our wildest moments, because no one prints out photos for photo albums sold at the dollar store anymore. Those days went away a long time ago. We'd rather hop on Facebook, twitter, instagram, or even LinkedIn and share information that way. The people following us should be okay with this, right?

Not everyone is okay with the parts of our lives we voluntarily share. In fact since the internet is the haters playground, we often find ourselves trying to defend what we put out there. Just think about the last time you had to explain to some stranger that you actually looked cute in the photo you clicked. Better yet, think about the last time you had to explain your level of intoxication after tweeting out some vulgar messages around 3 or 4 am.

Actually recently a woman tweeted out a racist photo of her sons dressed liked Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman for Halloween. Word on the street is she lost of her job and it came from people online researching and calling to get her fired. This also happened months ago with some random white girl. She had just been hired and was being trained at some minimum wage job. She tweeted something worthless, but big enough to anger online people. A popular blogger made sure to get others to harass the girl and get her fired from her job. See, it's not the employers doing all the research anymore. It's bored people online with nothing else to do but make your situation as bad as theirs, so we have to be careful.

Watch what you say and put up online. You don't want to be the next victim. While this is easy to say, it is harder to accomplish. America is supposed to be the place where your dreams come true no matter how many mistakes you make along the way. However, the older you get the more you realize that freedom is more of a word than an action. Live your life, but remember someone is not going to like it.